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Magazine Contributors Marcia De Groot Panjandrum and other 'p' words
Magazine Contributors Marcia De Groot Panjandrum and other 'p' words
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Usually it is a Dutch word, which gets me started on my exploration of things Dutch from the perspective of a learner, but recently the word ‘panjandrum’ has been running around my head. The sound of it appeals but I need to go to the English dictionary to check the meaning (and the spelling) and then to look it up in Dutch. Bij Marcia de Groot Yes, ‘panjandrum’ is how the dictionary has it – from 1755. There are details concerning how the word came into the language. It is a ‘nonsense formation’, which was made up to test someone’s claim ‘that he could repeat anything after once hearing it’. From this the meaning is explained as a mock title for a mysterious or exalted personage; a local magnate of great airs and more recently (1880!) a pompous pretender. Now to look in some Dutch dictionaries –no success in the first one, and the following information in the next (Kramers)–hoge oome, (voorname) piet. Hoge oome – high something? Oom I know as uncle so I go to that word in the dictionary and find that hoge oom is a ‘big-wig’. Voorname I think is first name, but the dictionary has another entry (with perhaps different syllable emphasis?) an air of distinction, distinguished, lordly appearance - which ties in with big-wig – yes? However, the entry already mentioned – (voorname) piet still has me puzzled, so it’s back to the Dutch dictionary to find out more about piet – the first name use I know - Piet - Peter in English, and zwarte Piet – Sinterklaas’ (Saint Nicholas’) black servant. Another use of piet is ‘person’. I’m not yet sure I’ve understood what the dictionary means by (voorname) piet, but will leave that for now, except to comment that a further glance at the dictionary tells me that een voornaamwoord is a pronoun and that voornamelijk can mean chiefly or principally. I’ve called this piece ‘Panjandrum and other ‘P’ words’ because additional words starting with ‘p’ came to mind – pre-occupation, percolate, pantechnicon and the Dutch word plotseling (sudden, suddenly). It seems that I have a pre-occupation with words – their sound, their meaning and origins, memories which they trigger. However, the memory can be misleading –pantechnicon (verhuiswagen) for instance – I had thought I’d ‘met’ the word in a documentary about experiments with weapons during the Second World War, but the dictionaries so far have no reference to this. Some of the English meanings are the same as in Dutch - a furniture warehouse and a furniture removal van. So, although my starting point was visual (from the documentary) and perhaps wrong, combined with a liking for the sound of the word, at present I seem to be ‘on the wrong tram’. Yet I still have this association of the word with a huge cumbering tank-like thing out of control on a beach as the wartime experimenters were trying it out. Perhaps someone will remember the documentary and ‘put me straight’. These last few words remind me of another interest –the origin of expressions. Perhaps more of that another time.   By now, enough ideas have percolated; suddenly (or plotseling – perhaps the last of the ‘p’ words for today) it is almost time to stop. No, there is one last ‘p’ word – pardon – or perhaps an apology is a better word - for not being precise. For some time I’ve been using the word percolate (doorsiepelen – literally trickling or oozing through or, another Dutch word - filtreren) to describe a bubbling up of ideas, thinking of the way coffee is sometimes made. However, the dictionaries I started to check it out in only mentioned ‘straining’ things (as in a filter) and again it seemed that I was on the wrong tram, but suddenly (that ‘p’ word again in Dutch),in another dictionary, there were further details – ‘the kind of coffeepot in which boiling water is forced up a hollow stem, filtered through ground coffee and returns to the pot below. As well, this dictionary reassures me that I was on the right tram after all – percolate can mean ‘to gradually become known’ – seemingly as in the filtering of ideas.A confession before I close – perhaps this interest in words is becoming an obsession – I’ve thought of yet another aspect which I enjoy - the use of words for fun, including puns (a punster is literally someone who plays with words – iemand die woordspelingen maakt. In English there is the term ‘a play on words’. Is it in Dutch also?). Sometimes the play on words happens unintentionally. For example, earlier in this piece when I ‘typed’ the word ‘clarification’, it reminded me of a meaning of the word from perhaps old-style cooking –‘to make a liquid clear by removing sediment, often by heating gently’ The example given is clarified butter, although I knew of it in relation to clear soup - or was it stock? Ah! Memory and its weaknesses! Anyway the pun was to do with seeking clarification (i.e., to make the meaning clear or at least a bit clearer) of a word to do with filtering which also has to do with ‘ making clear’. The trouble with puns is that they are often clearer to the person making them than to the reader- Pardon please! And that’s definitely the last of the ‘p’ words for today. Tot de volgende keer.
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